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Utility patents are the best way to protect most inventions. But to get one, you have to convince a USPTO examiner that your application is worthy.

Utility patents are by far the most common type of patent. In fact, the term “patent” almost always means “utility patent”. Almost all of the famous patents in history – the telephone, light bulb, transistor, airplane, motion picture, are utility patents.

What is a utility patent? Under US law, utility patents are the type of intellectual property (IP) that covers: “a new and useful process (e.g. a method of doing something), machine, manufacture, or composition of matter (e.g. a drug), or a new and useful improvement thereof.”

Note the underlined new. To get a utility patent application allowed (granted), the applicant has to prove to skeptical USPTO examiners that the invention really is new, and not just a trivial (obvious) tweak to older prior art.

Here “useful” means that the invention must have some actual benefit (isn’t clearly impossible or too illegal) and does more than just being decorative.

Utility patents are often the hardest type of IP to get. USPTO examiners usually attempt to use prior art to reject new applications. They expect applicants to rebut their rejections, often several times, before allowing the application. This process is called patent prosecution. If the applicant does not successfully rebut the various rejections, the application goes abandoned.

Legally, a US patent gives the owner the right to sue to collect royalties/damages and/or to attempt to block someone else from practicing the invention in the United States, but not internationally. The exact scope of legal protection is determined by the patent claims.

Patent valuation: Patent valuation is dictated in part by the desires of others to practice the invention, the effectiveness of the patent in thwarting these desires (what the claims cover), and the invention’s potential market size. If a particular patent covers an invention that no one else wants to practice, that patent isn’t going to be worth much!

Assuming maintenance fees are paid at 3-4, 7-8, and 11-12 years after issue, US utility patents typically last for 20 years from initial filing, sometimes more if the USPTO has taken too long to review the application. After that, they expire (go abandoned) and become public domain.

Don’t like having your own inventions used against you? Before your patent issues, consider filing a continuation application.

Continuation applications

Just got your US patent application allowed? Congratulations! Now before it issues (usually about 2-4 months after you pay the issue fee), you need to decide if you ever will want to file any improvements or variations of that invention in the future.

If you do have some improvements or variations in mind, now is the time to start working on filing a “continuation-in-part” (or CIP). In a CIP, you are basically telling the USPTO that you have added some new concepts to your original patent application. This is OK – worst case the examiner may determine that the new concepts have a later filing date, but in any event, the examiner won’t hold your original patent application against you.

In contrast to a CIP, patent continuation applications are essentially a repeat of the original application. Any differences to the claims had better be fully disclosed in the original application.

Why file a continuation? One common reason is that you think that you may be able to get stronger claims the second time around, perhaps by making the claims shorter and hence stronger. Or perhaps there was something in the original application that you forgot to put into your original claims. Both types of claim changes are fine so long as you can show that the newer claims were fully disclosed in the original application.

A second common reason is a nagging fear that although you might not have thought of any improvements or variations yet, you can’t rule out the possibility that you might do so in the near future. Here, if you don’t file a continuation, after your patent issues, your own patent will be used against your later patent applications as if someone else had invented it.

However if you do file a continuation, it essentially keeps your original patent “alive” a while longer (usually at least another year or so). Then, if you do come up with an improvement, you can then file a CIP to your continuation application. When you use this strategy, the USPTO will allow you to claim your later improvement without using your original application against you.

Prior art searches: Before investing a lot of time, effort, and money in trying to patent a potential new invention, it is always good to spend at least a few hours doing patent searches to see if there is any prior art (earlier patent or non-patent publications) that might cause problems. As a rule of thumb, if you haven’t found any prior art that concerns you at least a bit, then you probably haven’t looked enough yet!

Why do this? Because eventually, skeptical USPTO examiners will be going through your patent application, looking for ways to reject on the basis that the application is either not novel or obvious in view of prior art.

Patent examination is an adversarial process. Patent examiners have, in effect, quotas which require them to initially reject most patent applications. It is a bit of a game, like tennis, where the examiner initially rejects by citing some combination of prior art. The examiner then hits the ball back onto the applicant’s side of the court. The examiner is expecting the applicant to hit the ball back onto the examiner’s side of the court by submitting convincing arguments pointing out where the examiner was wrong. If the applicant can convincingly argue that the examiner is wrong, usually (often after a few additional volleys), the examiner allows the patent, and the applicant wins. But if the applicant cannot argue back convincingly, it is like dropping the ball or hitting the ball back out of bounds. The applicant loses, and that patent application is going nowhere.

The patent examiner typically starts by doing computer searches for prior art using search terms that the examiner thinks will work best. This computer search will come up with unexpected citations, which the examiner may in turn combine in unexpected ways to try to show that the invention is “obvious”. Because of the quota to initially reject almost everything, often these initial rejections are unreasonable. Unreasonable rejections are “good news” in disguise, because the applicant can then rebut these by reasonable arguments. It is the reasonable rejections that are the real “bad news”, because these are harder to argue against. So before putting a lot of time and money into an invention, it is a good idea to do at least some initial checking to see what the examiner (or for that matter, a competitor) might try to use against you later. This is the idea behind a “feasibility study” type prior art search.

Sometimes, particularly when the inventor or inventors are experts, the inventors themselves may decide that they are sufficiently familiar with their field so that the search-time expense/benefit ratio is low, and no additional prior art searches are worthwhile. Here, since the USPTO will do an independent search anyway, the only obligation that the inventors have is to inform USPTO of the most important prior art that they are aware of.

Other times, particularly when the inventor or inventors are working in an area that is new to them, prior art searches have a better search-time expense/benefit ratio. Here many good sources are available over the Internet, including Google, Google patents, Google Scholar, the USPTO patent database, the WIPO patent database, and the like.

Some common mistakes that inventors make is to underestimate the amount of prior art that a patent examiner can use against their invention. Although pretty much everyone understands the problem of prior patent applications by others, this is only part of the prior art problem.

For example, for the US, anything published more than a year ago can be used against your invention, including your own publications. This includes that “cool” YouTube video, that “cool” social media posting, or that research paper/thesis that you may have published last year. Foreign patent offices are even worse in this regard. Patent examiners know that often the inventor’s own worst enemy is the inventor’s own earlier publications. As a result, patent examiners often specifically search for the inventor’s own publications and internet postings to use against them.

Another problem that inventors sometimes have is that they are a bit too emotionally attached to their cool new idea. This problem can result in sub-optimal prior art searches. The inventor may, perhaps subconsciously, avoid search strategies that may kill that shiny new idea.

Here, there are several advantages to having a patent attorney do a quick feasibility prior art search for you. One is that the patent attorney does prior art searches all the time. Another is that the patent attorney, being both less emotionally invested in the idea, and being expert in finding prior art, may have an easier time thinking of thorough search strategies. The third is that often doing the search helps the patent attorney understand variants of your idea better, which can translate into a better patent application.

For example, if something highly relevant comes up (and often something does come up), then the new idea can be better evaluated in the context of this new-found prior art. The scope of the initial idea may be altered or expanded, and a better patent application can result. Worst case, if it becomes clear that the idea has been done before, then time and money can be saved. Alternative ideas can be explored instead.

In conclusion, “feasibility study” type prior art searches are a good way to get at least a rough estimate of the legal feasibility of a new idea. Although the prior art search may uncover what looks at a first glance to be a tough obstacle, often this initial obstacle may encourage further thinking and improvements to the initial idea, resulting in a better patent down the road.

Note that in addition to “feasibility study” type prior art searches, there are other types of patent searches called “freedom to operate” searches or opinions as well. These represent a different and more extensive type of search, and this is a different topic.

35 USC 103 rejections: Ever have something rejected as “obvious” in view of a combination of 5+ references? The re Gorman case is how such absurd rejections are rationalized.

According to MPEP 707 section 7.37.07, arguments that the examiner used an excessive number of citations are presently found to be “unpersuasive”. Section 7.37.07 is based upon an old case In re Gorman, 933 F.2d 982, 18 USPQ2d 1885 (Fed. Cir. 1991). However Gorman uses reasoning that is now obsolete and unsupported due to patent law developments since 1991.

Some key aspects of the re Gorman decision were:

“When it is necessary to select elements of various teachings in order to form the claimed invention, we ascertain whether there is any suggestion or motivation in the prior art to make the selection made by the applicant. Interconnect Planning Corp. v. Feil, 774 F.2d 1132, 1143, 227 USPQ 543, 551 (Fed.Cir.1985). ” ‘Obviousness can not be established by combining the teachings of the prior art to produce the claimed invention,absent some teaching, suggestion or incentive supporting the combination.’ ” In re Bond, 910 F.2d 831, 834, 15 USPQ2d 1566, 1568 (Fed.Cir.1990) (quoting Carella v. Starlight Archery and Pro Line Co., 804 F.2d 135, 140, 231 USPQ 644, 647 (Fed.Cir.1986)).

The extent to which such suggestion must be explicit in, or may be fairly inferred from, the references, is decided on the facts of each case, in light of the prior art and its relationship to the applicant’s invention. As in all determinations under 35 U.S.C. Sec. 103, the decisionmaker must bring judgment to bear. It is impermissible, however, simply to engage in a hindsight reconstruction of the claimed invention, using the applicant’s structure as a template and selecting elements from references to fill the gaps. Interconnect Planning, 774 F.2d at 1143, 227 USPQ at 551. The references themselves must provide some teaching whereby the applicant’s combination would have been obvious”

However since 2007 KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, the “teaching, suggestion or incentive” requirement for combining citations is no longer required (although still allowed). When this part of the 1991 Gorman court’s reasoning, shown in the first paragraph above, is removed, it becomes clear that the legal and logical underpinning of their 1991 decision no longer apply!

However under present rules, MPEP 707 section 7.37.07, based upon the now obsolete 1991 Gorman legal reasoning, still acts as a roadblock for any applicant who attempts to argue that the examiner did: “engage in a hindsight reconstruction of the claimed invention, using the applicant’s structure as a template and selecting elements from references to fill the gaps.”

Given that the Gorman court’s assumptions no longer hold, isn’t it time to revisit this case? At present, there is no upper limit to the number of citations that an examiner can apply, and indeed I personally have seen combinations of eight citations used in obviousness rejections.

In a rush to get your patent? Based on an analysis of statistics, the website patentlyo.com reports that the Track 1 prioritized examination method is far and away the best way to go. Track 1 vastly outperforms other speed-up methods (Accelerated Exam, Patent Prosecution Highway, and Petition to Make Special). In fact, most of the Track 1 prioritized patent applications are through the process in less than a year.

Track 1 is easy to do, if expensive. There is no requirement to do extra patent searching, and no requirement to work with foreign patent offices. If you are an independent inventor or your company is under 500 people in size, it is simply a matter of electing Track 1 at the time of initial filing, and in addition to the regular patent application fees, paying an additional $2830 in Track 1 exam fees, processing fees, and publication fees. It is also possible to elect Track 1 for an RCE filing as well.

The main other requirements are that the patent application have less than 4 independent claims and no more than 30 claims, which is not generally a problem for most purposes. There are a few other rules as well – a complete application must be submitted at the time of filing, and no extensions of time on replies are allowed. All in all, however, if you are in a rush and are willing to pay extra, it is a good option to consider.